Reassuring and Unnerving India } 751
and eastward with Guam, Hawaii, and North America. Both Tokyo and New
Delhi worried that China might opt to use military force to resolve territo-
rial disputes, and in such a situation, the timely exchange of intelligence on
Chinese ship movements between the Indian and Pacific Oceans would con-
siderably strengthen the efforts of both Tokyo and New Delhi to keep track
of those movements. More broadly, Tokyo and New Delhi each saw the other
as sharing an interest in preventing emergence of a China-centric Asia, and
in maintaining a pluralistic multipolar system in Asia. Both Tokyo and New
Delhi worried that Beijing’s efforts to expand cooperative ties with various
Asian countries could, if not balanced, lead to a China-centered Asia. Tokyo
and New Delhi each looked favorably on the military capabilities of the other,
seeing them as enhancing its own security. In economic terms, Indo-Japanese
ties expanded, with both Tokyo and New Delhi gradually discovering that
cooperation averted certain shortcomings encountered with economic coop-
eration with China. As Japan cut economic assistance to China, aid to India
rose.^31 Factors other than China’s growing power influenced some of these
developments. But Beijing’s periodic campaigns to pressure and intimidate
Japan and India contributed significantly to the glacial movement of the two
countries toward a loose coalition intended to prevent eventual Chinese dom-
ination of Asia.
Defense cooperation between India and Japan began in August 2000,
when Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori visited India to sign with Prime Minister
Vajpayee an agreement declaring a “Global Partnership between Japan and
India in the Twenty-first Century.” This was in the aftermath of New Delhi’s
China-threat justification of India’s nuclearization, and was part of Vajpayee’s
effort to strengthen India’s global position. Indian warships began visiting
Japan in 2000 as gestures of goodwill, and the first exchange of defense min-
isters came in July the next year.^32 In 2006, “strategic” was added to the offi-
cial description of the Indo-Japanese relationship, reflecting growing interest
in military and security cooperation. Between 2006 and 2014, a dozen or so
statements and declarations of strategic partnership were issued during nearly
annual exchange visits by Japanese and Indian prime ministers. In August
2007, Japan and India agreed on a Roadmap for New Dimensions to the
Strategic and Global Partnership. The Roadmap declared that the partnership
was founded on “universal values of democracy, open society, human rights,
rule of law and market economy”—formulations that sharply distinguished
those two countries from China. The Roadmap also proclaimed “common
interests in promoting peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and the world.”
Moreover: “A strong ... India is in the interest of Japan and a strong ... Japan is
in the interest of India.” “Japan and India share a convergence of interests,”
the Roadmap declared.^33
A year after the “Roadmap,” the two countries signed an agreement on
security cooperation—only Japan’s third such agreement, after ones with the